Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by metters 1821 days ago
The headline is wrong. The article is about mRNA vaccines in general.

Moreover, Pfizer is partner of BioNTech, which developed the vaccine. I don’t understand why OP omits that and solely credits Pfizer.

2 comments

in America, the vaccine is referred to as the "Pfizer vaccine" in the majority of newsletters. I understand this varies based on what country you're in, but this isn't unique there and is common practice for this vaccine's name.

Pfizer is easier to type than "Pfizer BioNTech" (there's 3 capital letters in that second word, 2 next to each other).

Laziness wins.

"The process is the vaccine" aka manufacturing the vaccine is the hardest part. Saying that Pfizer is just a partner of the "real" vaccine developer downplays the importance of manufacturing to a significant degree. It's just as much Pfizer's vaccine as it is BioNTech's.
It's still a bit unfortunate that this vaccine gets marketed as the sole achievement of a major us company while in reality the larger part of the funding for its development came from other parties, the single most biggest being german tax-payers.
But then why leaving them out? I accept your point but BioNTech is as much credible for this as Pfizer